NFL · NFC-EAST · COWBOYS · EAGLES · COMMANDERS · GIANTS
State of the NFC Least
By Cowboy Teddy · @TeddyHadden97 ·
Unfortunately, in order to maintain integrity with my coverage, I must openly admit to being a rabid Cowboys fan.
Growing up in a college football family, I was never explicitly linked to an explicit fandom, and growing up in Augusta, Georgia most people would typically fall into the Falcons, Panthers, or even the Buccaneers. Unfortunately growing up, my neighbors and best friends were die-hard Virginia Tech and Dallas Cowboys fans, so when I’d go over to their house on Sundays, I slowly became a fan of a team that I didn’t know was vehemently despised in the NFL culture.
I would have to endure several awful incidents such as the Dez Bryant “catch” and abysmal playoff record, while the football public celebrated as if the prime Alabama dynasty had lost a game every single time something unfortunate happened to us. All the while, I have yet to enjoy an NFC Championship, a Super Bowl, or a competent owner while a seemingly omnipotent immortal terrorist makes all of our decisions in our ultimate goal to be the best.
With that being said, I like to consider myself a fair critic of Jerry Jones and give him credit where it is due. Nevertheless, I wanted to give what I consider a fairly accurate assessment of the NFC East while stating my bias so nobody gets the wrong idea of what I say. Without further ado, let’s start with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Eagles
Now I should start by saying while I view the Eagles as rivals, I don’t necessarily hold an undying hatred for their organization. Historically, we are bitter rivals, but for some reason the NFL gods in the last recent years seem to match us up in a way where we don’t have an emotional impact on each other in a meaningful way.
For example; on the Eagles’ most recent Super Bowl run, Dak Prescott was out with a hamstring injury and we had to throw out Cooper Rush in both meetings. Not making excuses, but even if we had won both matchups the Cowboys would not have been a threatening contender in any sense, and the Eagles would have still marched on to their second Super Bowl. Maybe a better analyst than I could find an example that shows this rivalry still merits an unrealistic hatred, but from my perspective one of us is good, and one of us is abysmal dogshit in the last 15 years of competition.
So I for one will give them credit when credit is due. For example, after having an abysmal dogshit start of the year losing to the Bears in prime time to the elderly Case Keenum, Nick Sirianni and company realized this season was over. Obviously a team of this caliber was never going to compete for a Super Bowl let alone the 7 seed of the wild card.
So what did the Eagles do? Well first, they learned that Jalen Hurts had a superficial blood clot that could potentially be life-threatening. Now a bad franchise would simply come out and let the public know that their QB would be benched due to their injury and prevent any further harm to him. But the Eagles are a smart franchise; they’re playing chess, not checkers!
They decided to let him play against the Jaguars without sleeping or disclosing the injury so they could appear to be a franchise trying to save the season while also knowingly, intentionally tanking. In fact, their plan worked so well, that they ended up leading with 8 seconds left, and had to intentionally let the Jags get into field goal range by making incredibly poor coaching decisions so they could ethically lose this game and fully commit to their tanking decision.
Watch on YouTube: 8 SECONDS IN LONDON!!! Eagles vs Jaguars Week 5 Ending (NFL)
In all seriousness, the Eagles do have the foresight to recognize this season is indeed over, due to injuries and retirements completely out of their control, and are smart enough to tank the rest of the year to get better draft picks. As much as I’d like to spike the ball in their face, I can respect that they have smart enough ownership to recognize a lost endeavor and do the most to capitalize on it to their advantage.
Commanders
Now while I can confidently admit my disdain for the Eagles, I must admit I have always had a soft spot for the Redskins. They always seemed fun, and were a spunky underdog to secretly root for against the opponents of my Cowboys. Even in the modern day, Dan Quinn gave my Cowboys the best defense we have probably seen in our lifetime, and he was without a doubt the most effective coordinator I have probably seen in my experience of being a die-hard Cowboys fan.
With that being said, I am more than happy to jump to his defense when it is clear he is intentionally tanking this season to also secure better draft picks for his Washington Commanders. Like any good franchise, you cannot make it abundantly clear that you are giving up on a season less than 7 weeks into the season without facing the backlash of the fanbase.
So what does the fearless Dan Quinn do? Well of course, he brings the Commanders right back into an overtime game with a chance to win it and intentionally pretends to not know how time works. The ruse was so clever, that it even tricked me into placing an absurdly large bet on them to win live. It was such a genius move that it cost me half my bet because for some reason DraftKings does not completely refund a bet in a tie scenario, something not even I knew!
And just when I thought Dan Quinn had unloaded all of his tricks, he commanded Jayden to throw an uncatchable ball on a 4th and 2, and then PRETENDED to not know it was 4th down to fully commit to his tanking protocol.
To the untrained eye you might consider this poor, uneducated, moronic coaching, but to an educated analyst like me, I can tell that every coach worth their salt realized winning the NFC East this year is basically a participation trophy. The Commanders will continue to “accidentally” make miscues in order to get a good draft position, and they are right on track to have a good season next year assuming Jayden Daniels’ elbow doesn’t turn back into wet pasta.
Cowboys
Unfortunately I have reached the portion of this article where I have to write positively about my Cowboys and my expectations for the rest of this year. I will try to be as honest as possible.
Initially, when we hired Schottenheimer I was cautiously pessimistic. I didn’t like the options on the table, and as much as I like Kellen Moore, we had fired him very recently and I thought it would be organizational malpractice to hire the offensive coordinator we had fired two seasons prior to be our new head coach. I’m not sure what my expectations would have been with him, but I did like him as a coordinator and wouldn’t have hated it despite it being embarrassing.
I also think it was time for McCarthy to go; I wanted him gone the year prior, but felt he didn’t deserve to be let go the year he ultimately was. Fact of the matter was he wasn’t the guy to give us a Super Bowl, but most teams would’ve killed for the seasons he provided us.
Enough on him, let’s talk about Brian. I thought he did fine his first year. We had an impressive offense but our defense was so abysmal that it was impossible to have any kind of success in the league.
When Jerry Jones traded Micah Parsons away, I was actually bartending at work and shattered a wine glass in my hand when I had heard which team he had decided to trade him to. I was beyond livid, and I myself still own two different Micah Parsons jerseys. Although it pains me to admit it, I do believe Jerry ended up winning the trade (although a lot of that is due to Parsons suffering a significant injury that he had no way of knowing would happen).
Cut to today; we have lost yet another embarrassing loss to a Packers team that might not even be that good. Prior to losing to the Bucs, I saw many Cowboys fans predicting we might go 5-0 on our path to the Niners, something I always believed was a stretch. As a true Cowboys fan, let me warn you now that we will also lose to the Cardinals, although I do think we will beat the Colts.
I haven’t quite fully given up on Schottenheimer, mainly because when your franchise is run by a terrorist, they don’t often make the best personnel hires. With that being said, if Brian can get the defense finally right, this could be a team that makes noise if we win the division, but I have serious concerns he is the right guy to fix our issues.
Giants
Now I will admit this is nonsensical, but I absolutely hate the Giants. I have never really viewed them as a threat. They have always been a team I looked at and said “If we lose to these morons the season is over.” I’m honest enough to admit that’s not a fair thing to do, but in fairness I think their coaching and ownership is so dogshit that it isn’t a completely unreasonable way to feel.
Well unfortunately, they managed to hire an actual competent leader for their team who was smart enough to know how to win games. Take the opener for example; they managed to let the Cowboys get only two drives in the second half of the game. If that sounds insane, go look at it yourselves. The Cowboys were able to score on both drives, but they bled our defense so bad they could win the game off it.
Now I’m not going to spend the entire segment talking about the Cowboys, but there is an interesting dilemma unfolding for the Giants right now. What does a successful season look like? As of now it appears to be a two-way race for the division right now, but is that something the Giants need?
While I thought the JJ trade was a smart move for the Giants, they have seemed hesitant to start him and seem willing to let Jameis play this season out. If the goal is to win the division, I think they have a solid chance seeing as how the NFC East has been a massive disappointment competitively speaking. But if we have to really ask ourselves if anybody in this division has a real chance at the Super Bowl, I think we mostly would agree it’s a longshot.
Jaxson Dart is a good enough QB to play meaningful football, but with him sidelined for the season it almost seems counterproductive for them to have a good season. If I was a Giants fan I myself would want them to keep their foot on the gas, but I think they would agree with me that the chances of a Super Bowl even with Harbaugh seems like a longshot, and all this winning might not be beneficial to them in the long run. If I am playing devil’s advocate, I’m not sure Dart has proven himself either to be able to stay healthy for an entire season to play meaningful football come playoff time either.
Doing my best to put myself in their shoes, I think they will spend the rest of the season trying to bring a much needed division title to a team that is starving for one and hope that brings energy to a team that needs it, even if it means shooting themselves in the foot on the draft this year.
Last point I’ll make on the Giants is while I can truly appreciate Harbaugh wanting to bring a culture of his own to the franchise; giving Cam Skattebo 0 touches is embarrassing. And I know it’s embarrassing because when he was asked about it after the fact, he pretended to be a moron to the reporter inquiring about it and then immediately released Najee Harris.
The fake tough guy routine is certainly a route to go, but putting your starting RB in the doghouse when you’re leading a dogshit division is a moronic choice, and he deserves to lose every time he does it.